Asteroid Hygiea a candidate for a dwarf planet?

Astronomers from the Astronomical Observatory Institute AMU, working in an international team, obtained a very detailed image of Hygiea – the fourth in size asteroid, revolving the Sun between orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It made it possible to derive the accurate shape and size of this object and learn its violent past. Aditionally the obtained results provide arguments to classify Hygiea as a dwarf planet. The research has been published in the newest issue of Nature Astronomy ( a note about these observations is also available at the ESO webpage).

The AOI AMU members of the research team are: Edyta Podlewska-Gaca, Przemysław Bartczak, Grzegorz Dudziński, Agnieszka Kryszczyńska, Tadeusz Michałowski, Anna Marciniak i Roman Hirsch, and its Principal Investigator is Pierra Vernazza from Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (France).